Morning on the Oise

Charles-François Daubigny’s landscapes focus on the quiet rivers in France where he spent most of his life painting. In 1857 Daubigny purchased a houseboat, which he named Le Botin, and converted it into a floating studio. For two decades the artist navigated the waterways of France, painting scenes on the Oise, Loire, and Seine rivers. One of the first plein-air, or “open-air,” painters in France, he carefully studied the ever-changing sunlight and skies to record the immediacy of the moment before him. Daubigny’s naturalistic palette and mastery of light and atmospheric effects made him an important precursor to the Impressionists.